Northern Ireland Budget (No. 2) Bill

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Money resolution: House of Commons & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 9th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Michael Fallon]

I am very happy to accept that particular challenge. My amendment may well not be watertight. I understood that there were some reservations in the PSNI about a statute of limitations. That is one of the complexities.

There are other complexities: if we introduce a statute of limitations in Northern Ireland, why not introduce it elsewhere, where the British military is involved in other campaigns? I am sure that we will hear from the Secretary of State about other difficulties involving the European convention on human rights and so on, but the principle is that there should be some form of limitation. We cannot endlessly go back. Are we to reopen cases where it is alleged that Canadian or British troops shot prisoners out of hand in one of the more difficult days after the D-day landing? Should those cases be reopened? Nobody in this House would say yes. There must come a point when we have to draw a line.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his amendments, but does he agree that we need to tread very carefully, as there are important principles of law here? Our armed forces do not want to be aside from or above the law; they uphold the law. Does he also agree that under the military covenant our armed forces must suffer no disadvantage—that is the test—but that in that important regard they are at a significant disadvantage under the law as it stands?